As is known in the art, the ability to uniquely identify items, devices, and services (collectively called “objects”) is essential for many applications including but not limited to 20 security access control, supply chain management and communications. The inability to uniquely identify every object of interest renders many of these applications less effective than is generally desired. One component for unique identification is the association of a unique identifier with the object. The identifier may take many forms, such as a given name or number (e.g., a social security number) or a characteristic of the object (e.g., a fingerprint). Once objects are uniquely identified, it would be desirable to locate data about the object or service using the unique identifier.
In a world in which every object has an associated electronic product code (EPC) which may be attached or associated to the object with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag for example, EPC readers (e.g., RFID tag readers) will be picking up a continual stream of EPCs. It has, therefore, been recognized that managing and moving all of this data is a difficult problem and one that must be addressed in an RFID network. One embodiment of a RFID system is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/379,187 filed on Aug. 20, 1999 which claims the benefit of application No. 60/097,254 filed Aug. 20, 1998.